Green power (photosynthesis)

God’s solar power plants amaze chemists

Green plants are a beautiful part of Earth’s environment, and they are essential
for life. God created them on the 3rd day of Creation Week (Genesis 1:10–13),
before animals, and even before the sun.1
At the beginning of creation, humans and all animals were herbivores (Genesis 1:29–30).

Even now, plants are the basis of the food chain, because they don’t require
their own food but make it from sunlight via photosynthesis. In this process, they
also produce the oxygen (O2) which is essential for all air-breathing
life. Photosynthesis is therefore one of the most important chemical reactions on
Earth. If we could duplicate it, it would probably solve all the world’s energy
problems.2 But even the most ingenious
chemists have yet to match the ingenious machinery of the humble plant.

The unique … arrangement … is essential … because it must be able
to store the energy from four photons, and hold water molecules in just the right
positions. This structure had to be complete otherwise it would not work at all
…. Therefore it could not be built up gradually by small changes by natural
selection … because an incomplete intermediate system is no use at all, so
it would not be selected.

Water blasting problem

The key to photosynthesis is breaking up a molecule of water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The hydrogen can then combine with CO2 from the air to make sugars, which
the plant (and herbivores) can use for food. All this occurs in the molecules called
chlorophylls, which are responsible for the greenness of plants.

But breaking up water requires an enormous amount of energy—basically the
amount released when hydrogen is burned to form water in the first place.

One problem is the very nature of light itself. Light is a form of energy, but it
comes in ‘packets’ called photons. If the photon energy is
not large enough to break the water molecule, then it won’t matter how many
of them there are (i.e. how bright the light is). But a photon that is energetic
enough3 to break water would also
shatter most biological molecules in the process. Yet we don’t see exploding
leaves!

A few years ago, two chemists from Yale University, Gary Brudvig and Robert Crabtree,
made an artificial system that managed to produce oxygen.4 However, they had not worked out how to use light energy,
so instead they used the chemical energy of powerful bleaches.5 And even then, it produced only 100 O2 molecules
before being destroyed. Yet it was a great achievement, by human standards, to make
something that didn’t fall apart immediately.6

It turns out that in leaves, there is a special assembly called Photosystem II (named because
it was discovered second). A photon strikes this, and it is channeled into a type
of chlorophyll called P680. There it knocks out an electron from an atom, and this
energetic electron eventually helps make sugars from CO2. But then, the
P680 must replenish the lost electron. This is a big problem for artificial photosynthesis—human
chemists have also so far been unable to produce a system that replenishes the electrons
knocked out by the photons. Photosynthesis would have quickly ground to a halt without
this, so how are the electrons replaced?

They come from a special catalytic core, which removes the required electrons
from water, again with the help of light. The light breaks two molecules of water
into a molecule of oxygen, four electrons and two hydrogen ions.

The redox potential of water is +2.5 V, while each photon raises the catalytic core’s
redox potential by 1 V. So after the third stage, there is enough energy for the
single Mn to remove an electron from a water molecule, leaving an OH radical and
H+ ion. Then the catalytic core gets to the fourth stage, and provides
the Mn atom with enough power to attack the OH radical and leaves a highly reactive
O atom and another H+ ion. At this moment, the Ca atom in the cube plays
its essential role. It is holding another water molecule in just the right place,
so it can be attacked by this O atom, producing an O2 molecule, two more
H+ ions and two electrons.

The unique Mn3CaO4–Mn arrangement is present in all
plants, algae and cyanobacteria, which suggests that this arrangement is essential.
Not surprising, because it must be able to store the energy from four photons, and
hold water molecules in just the right positions. This structure had to be complete
otherwise it would not work at all—in splitting water and replenishing electrons.
Therefore it could not be built up gradually by small changes by natural selection.
This is because an incomplete intermediate system is no use at all, so it would
not be selected.

And even this core would be useless without many other coordinated features. For
example, as above, the energy involved is damaging for biological molecules. Yet
there are key proteins required, but must be constantly repaired, so these mechanisms
must be in place too. In fact, instability of these proteins made it hard to work
out the core’s structure.9

If the most intelligent human designers can’t duplicate photosynthesis, then
it’s perfectly scientific to believe that photosynthesis had a far more intelligent
designer. This is especially so since Darwinian processes could not have generated
photosynthesis, because there are too many intricate mechanisms necessary for it
to work at all.10

Plants were there right at the beginning

Recent research indicates that there was oxygen even in the ‘oldest’
rocks on earth, which evolutionists ‘date’ to 3.7 billion years old
(Ga).11 This in turn suggests that
there were green plants to produce it. However, evolutionists claim that the earth
was being bombarded by meteorites till about 3.8 Ga.

Yet this latest research shows that life existed almost as soon the earth was able
to support it. There is just no room for ‘billions and billions of years’
for life to evolve. And this life was not just the simplest type, but was advanced
enough to photosynthesize.12

Also, this research is devastating for chemical evolutionary theories of the origin
of life.13 The famous gas discharge
experiments by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey must
exclude free oxygen, because oxygen destroys organic molecules, and makes them impossible
to form in the first place. But if oxygen is as old as the oldest rocks, there is
no geological evidence to support the hypothetical oxygen-free atmosphere required.

Related Articles

References

Great early Christian writers pointed out that God’s real
historical creation of plants before the sun showed the futility of pagan sun worship.
Jewish and Reformed writers likewise agreed that the sun was created on a literal
4th day. See Sarfati, J., Refuting Compromise, pp. 84–86, Master Books,
Green Forest, AR, 2004. Return to text.

The energy E is related to the frequency ν by E = hν, where
h = Planck’s Constant = 6.6262 x 10–34 Js. A photon energetic
enough to break water would be in the ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic
spectrum. Return to text.

Redox (reduction/oxidation) potential measures how strongly a molecule
or ion attracts electrons. The more electron-loving, the more positive; the more
electron-releasing, the more negative. Redox potential is measured in volts. Water’s
redox potential is high, so needs a very strong electron remover, such as an oxygen
atom, to remove one of its electrons. Return to text.

Rosing, M.T. and Frei, R., U-rich Archaean sea-floor sediments
from Greenland—indications of >3700 Ma oxygenic photosynthesis, Earth and
Planetary Science Letters217:237–244, 2004. The
evidence was fairly indirect—certain carbon isotope ratios were typical of
phytoplankton, and the presence of uranium suggested that it was transported in
solution by oxidized ocean water. Return to text.

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